Featured in

  • Published 20170124
  • ISBN: 9781925498295
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

WHEN RUBY FIRST moves to town she stays with the Miss Wrights on Prospect Road, on the recommendation of her Aunt Maude. Aunt Maude is a frequent visitor, and if Ruby is spending the weekend in town, she joins them in the parlour for afternoon tea. The Miss Wrights have a horror of drafts, of catching a chill on the kidneys, but the atmosphere in the parlour – with the heavy drapes drawn to protect the furniture – is the closest of all. Occasionally a ray of light steals through a gap in the curtains, illuminating the room like a diver’s torch. Cat dander glitters and somersaults in the air like plankton.

‘I’ve been warning everybody for years to avoid tomatoes, haven’t I, Ethel?’ says the elder Miss Wright. 

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Anna Goldsworthy

Anna Goldsworthy is an Adelaide-based pianist and writer. She is a research fellow at the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University...

More from this edition

Bigger than heaven

Memoir1 I RECALL VERY little about myself before the age of six. I possess no photographs to jolt the hidden memories, and those few relatives...

God bless the footy

EssayWHEN IT CAME to colourful and controversial views, the long-time mayor of Port Augusta, Joy Baluch, set elite standards: ‘I hate sport,’ she said...

Diminishing city

EssayEXACTLY FIFTY YEARS ago, in the spring of 1966, my family left the Pennington Migrant Centre in Adelaide to drive up Highway 1 to...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.